


[Fandom stats] Everybody loves Hogwarts -- Harry Potter fusions and crossovers

by toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [43]
Category: Fandom - Fandom, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2014-02-21
Packaged: 2019-09-15 04:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: A look at fandoms that often crossover/have fusions with Harry Potter, and how such fanworks got tagged as of 2014 (there was a lot of variance).





	[Fandom stats] Everybody loves Hogwarts -- Harry Potter fusions and crossovers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted on Tumblr](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/77453118197/toastystats-everybody-loves-hogwarts). You can see the images bigger on [imgur](https://imgur.com/a/HipIcaf).

**TOASTYSTATS: EVERYBODY LOVES HOGWARTS**

**[[Toastystats overview](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/stats)]**

I've been vaguely under the impression that nearly everyone in fandom is a Harry Potter fan, and that Rowling's world is one of the most popular fusions to write, regardless of the fandom in question.  I decided to investigate how true this perception is, and also to look at a bunch of different ways that AO3 users tag their Harry Potter crossovers and fusions.

**Part I: all Harry Potter works**

To start, I looked at the top 10 other fandoms in the "[Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Harry%20Potter%20-%20J*d*%20K*d*%20Rowling/works)" tag on AO3.  This means the top 10 other fandoms that were  _also_ listed as the fandom, for stories with multiple fandoms.  I removed duplicates/variants.  See Fig 1 (the first blue graph) for results.  

Sherlock tops the list; this could partially explain why I think Hogwarts AUs are so popular. :)

[ **Caveat 1:** The stories tagged with multiple fandoms are not necessarily crossovers/fusions.  Many of them are collections of drabbles from different fandoms, e.g.  Also, even if they are fusions or crossovers, some of them could be Harry Potter characters put into other settings, rather than other stories set in the Hogwarts AU.  But a bunch of them probably are crossovers/fusions.]

As usual when I look at the biggest fandoms, it's hard to tell whether these fandoms have a lot of Harry Potter in particular, or are just so popular overall that they have a lot of everything.  Fig. 2 (the first red graph) shows the percentage of each of these fandom's fanworks that have the Harry Potter tag.  From this, we see that less that 1% of most fandoms' fanworks are in this category.

It looks like Harry Potter crossovers/fusions were especially popular in the Buffy and Twilight fandoms.  However, I believe both these fandoms experienced their peak pre-AO3.  It's also possible that a relatively high proportion of the HP crossovers got archived to AO3, for some reason, or that tagging conventions have changed over time.

[ **Caveat 2:** I didn't do this analysis for other fandoms.  So it's quite possible that a high percentage of the fanworks in some smaller fandoms are Harry Potter fusions, and this analysis didn't pick that up.  In other words, this analysis does NOT show the fandoms where Harry Potter crossovers are most popular in terms of percentage of fanworks.]

**Part II: Harry Potter + Crossover**

I repeated this process, but this time looked at fanworks that used both [the HP and the "Crossover" tags](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Crossover&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&tag_id=Harry+Potter+-+J*d*+K*d*+Rowling).  And then I thresholded and only included fandoms with at least 10 fanworks that had both these tags.  See Fig 3 and Fig 4 for results.

[ **Clarification:**   For all the tags I talk about here, I used the umbrella tags that also caught a bunch of related tags, like "Crack Crossover" or "Harry Potter/Resident Evil Crossover."]

In general, the results are very similar to before.  However, there are far fewer results in this subcategory.  I suspect there are a lot of Harry Potter crossovers out there that don't use that tag.

**Part III: Harry Potter + Fusion**

I again repeated this process, but this time looked at fanworks that used both [the HP and the "Alternate Universe - Fusion" tags](http://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Alternate+Universe+-+Fusion&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=0&tag_id=Harry+Potter+-+J*d*+K*d*+Rowling).  And then I thresholded and only included fandoms with at least 10 fanworks that had both these tags.  See Fig 5 and Fig 6 for results.

The "Alternate Universe - Fusion" tag is used even less than the Crossover tag.  However, there appears to also be a different pattern of usage.  The "Fusion" tag is relatively more popular in the Sherlock and Les Mis fandoms than in the other common fandoms.  And Teen Wolf also makes an appearance in the top 10 here, but not in the "Crossover" version.

**Part IV: Hogwarts AU**

Finally, I did the same analysis for the tag "[Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Alternate%20Universe%20-%20Harry%20Potter%20Setting)."  In this analysis, I didn't require that Harry Potter be listed among the fandom tags.  See Fig 7 and Fig 8 for results.

In this tag, we see some fandoms that didn't make the list previously -- One Direction, Homestuck, A Song of Ice and Fire, and Rise of the Guardians all have more than 10 fanworks with this tag.  Those fandoms, along with Sherlock and Les Mis, are relatively more likely to use this tag for HP fusions than the other fandoms on the list.

**Takeaways**

The Harry Potter universe is a very popular one to play in -- more so in the Sherlock fandom than in some, but it's generally a well-loved AU.  However, there are a lot of ways to tag for it.  Keep this in mind when searching for this kind of fanfic, or when tagging your own stories so as to make them easily findable!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome, but I'm in the midst of a mass backup due to Tumblr purge and may be slow to respond.


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